Liverpool defender Joe Gomez has a minor Achilles injury and has flown home from the club’s pre-season tour in Asia. He, alongside several others, misses the game with AC Milan today.
The Reds decided that given Gomez was unlikely to be able to play against either AC Milan or Yokohama Marinos in Japan next week, it was best for him to recover on Merseyside. Earlier in the week, he was pictured watching training and has had injury issues in the past, including missing several months last season.
“He was, of course, with us for the first part of the week, but he had some Achilles problems,” Arne Slot said. “We thought it was better to assess it back in England.
“For him to work on [the injury] to come back to the team, [it is] probably in more ideal circumstances for him than being part of the group that every time goes out. So, we decided to let him go back to England. But we hope and expect to have him back soon.”
The injury blow leaves only Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate as senior center-back options for Arne Slot, with Jarell Quansah having joined Bayer Leverkusen.
With Gomez’s absence taking Liverpool down to two senior center-backs, it could be that Ryan Gravenberch drops in at the back today. Before the summer ends, though, signing another player in that position is surely a priority.
Elsewhere, Alexis Mac Allister is not involved against AC Milan as he continues to get back up to speedafter an injury. Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez, who have both been linked with exits, are also absent from the squad.
One player who will feature against AC Milan is Milos Kerkez, though the Hungarian international is among the substitutes. As a former player of the Reds’ opponents, he is relishing the chance to be involved.
“Obviously I played there and trained a lot with the first team, know a lot of the guys,” he told the Reds’ official website this week.
“It will be fun and will be good also for me to get more minutes and get adapted more to my teammates. I’m looking forward to it — it’s my old team and I have good memories there.
“[Training so far] has been really good. Intense —that’s how we like to train. We are adapting to the heat still but it’s good, all the guys train hard and we are getting really ready physically.
“I think it will help definitely, when we get back to England then the lungs will open. Because we train in big heat and we know how the weather is there. So, I think it will help us a lot and we will get back really ready.”
